Name: Undescribed Aglaspid
Phylum: Arthropoda; Subphylum: Chelicerata; Class: Merostomata; Order: Aglaspida
Geological Time: Upper Middle Cambrian, Cenomanian Stage
Size: 18 mm long by 7 mm wide on a 70 mm by 72 mm matrix pair
Fossil Locality: House Range, Weeks Formation, Millard County, Utah
 This
arthropod is an undescribed member of the Aglaspida. Aglaspids resemble
the modern-day horseshoe crabs, and contain as the most famous member
Beckwithia typa, a monsterous creature at over 20 cm in overall length
that is thought to have been a predator of trilobites. Beckwithia
was named after Frank Beckwith, editor and publisher of the Millard
County Chronicle of Delta, Utah in the early to middle 1900s, a man
with a passion for trilobites. Aglaspids are thought by some scientists
to have made the trackways named Protichnites. This Aglaspid has trilobitomorph
features, and has as yet not been described in the literature. Lacking
only the spiked telson, this rare specimen is rendered even more so
by the fact that both part and counterpart examples are preserved. |
